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Two ministers share their own stories about struggling to live out their faith. It’s the sort of experience familiar to many: Somewhere between illness and divorce, abusive relationships and brushes with death, faith failed to provide answers . . . or we failed to live as though we believed faith held answers. But surely, it’s different for clergy, the ones who preach and practice faith? But faith requires more, and authors Martha Spong and Rachel G. Hackenberg, who grew up in the church and became ordained ministers, know first-hand about coming to terms with God and life, the need to search for answers . . . or at least assurance we are not alone in struggling for renewed hope. Denial is My Spiritual Practice is a companion for the wondering and struggling. The authors offer their own stories as evidence that God remains, both when faith fails and when faith finds new understanding. They combine stark life experiences, offbeat spiritual perspectives, and Scripture to offer comfort, grace, laughter, and a few tears along the way.
- Speaks to an authentic articulation of living out our faith - Valuable insights presented in easy-to-read (and identify with) style
Beyond Denial is a collection of essays envisioning a spirituality for our time that is life-affirming and inclusive, intellectually viable and socially responsible. The author, an ordained minister, integrates Judeo-Christian insights with the rich resources of many world religions and wisdom-streams. He emphasizes the centrality of consciousness in spiritual practice, first through fostering experiential awareness of our inherent inner Divinity, but also through consciously perceiving--and moving beyond denial of--whatever dysfunctional patterns may plague us individually or in society. From Columbine to the Clinton impeachment, from Alanis Morissette music to baseball games, Acheson invites readers to look at the world with curiosity and compassion, for it is only through inner questioning that we may transform all we've denied so far. This book offers a range of valuable insights and practices for shaping a hopeful future through expanded awareness of all levels of the human experience.
Offers a Buddhist perspective on aging well, with anecdotes of the author's experiences with illness, aging, and transformation, and guided meditations.
We are all going to die, but some of us will die better. As a spiritual teacher based in the Washington, D.C., area, Erica Brown has attracted a strong following among those looking for practical wisdom based on the world’s most revered and treasured religious texts. Here she shares stories and ref lections on one of life’s most essential topics: how we pack each day with love and meaning precisely because we will not live forever. Erica helps us confront our fears about death—for ourselves and our loved ones—and demonstrates how the last days of life can be among the most inspiring if we learn to leave a legacy of words and values, to forgive and apologize, and to make important decisions about our last hours. Praised by New York Times columnist David Brooks for combining “extreme empathy with extreme tough-mindedness,” Erica Brown is a leading religious scholar with a sense of humor and a gift for storytelling. In Happier Endings, she meets people of all faiths who deal with death in enlightening ways, including a mother who arranged for her children to sprinkle her ashes on a favorite ski slope, an ex-nun who prepares people to die, a group of women who ritually wash the dead, and a family whose grandfather’s Ethical will is read by his survivors each year. Brown leads readers on an emotional journey to prepare for and accept death, drawing on the wisdom found in many spiritual traditions. The crucial step, Brown writes, is becoming comfortable discussing death—and not just in the abstract. This kind of honesty allows for important conversations, from financial wills to last words that reinforce to those you love most what matters most to you. After reading Happier Endings, you will have a greater understanding of what a good death can be and what a life well lived looks like.
The author of The Road Less Traveled, the bestselling and most influential book of psychiatric and spiritual instruction in modern times, now offers a deeply moving meditation on what euthanasia reveals about the status of the soul in our age. Its trenchant and sensitive treatment of the subject will define our humanity for generations to come.
Our lives are full of words. We rarely pause to attend to them, much less take time for personal retreat. This book encourages you to stop and revel in the sights, sounds, and meanings of what we say about God. Rachel Hackenberg offers the word-weary, the word-lover, and the spiritually hungry to explore the words of faith anew and thereby meet The Word afresh. Through twelve deceptively light-hearted chapters on letters and definitions, grammar and poetry, this book spa rks spiritual inspiration even as it provides practical exercises for an enlivening personal retreat experience! Rachel G. Hackenberg is an ordained United Church of Christ minister and author of Writing to God and Writing to God: Kids’ Edition. She facilitates workshops on prayer & worship, clergy renewal, and congregational vitality. She blogs at faithandwater.com. "Rachel Hackenberg invites us to reconsider and re-engage with the words we typically use to describe, rather than to fully express, our faith. Sacred Pause is a book to savor. It's as much a devotional as it is a guide for a creative retreat that will change the way you'll encounter Scripture and live the Gospel." —Meredith Gould, PHD, author of Service as a Spiritual Practice "This book will awaken you to a sensational faith, encompassing all your senses and enabling you to experience the holiness of God in the quotidian adventures of life. An antidote to spiritual stagnation, this text will get you out of your chair and onto your feet, dancing with God, singing with the Spirit, and jumping for joy with Jesus." —Bruce Epperly, author of Holy Adventure
In the twenty years since its publication, Celebration of Discipline has helped over a million seekers discover a richer spiritual life infused with joy, peace, and a deeper understanding of God. For this special twentieth anniversary edition, Richard J. Foster has added an introduction, in which he shares the story of how this beloved and enduring spiritual guidebook came to be. Hailed by many as the best modern book on Christian spirituality, Celebration of Discipline explores the "classic Disciplines," or central spiritual practices, of the Christian faith. Along the way, Foster shows that it is only by and through these practices that the true path to spiritual growth can be found. Dividing the Disciplines into three movements of the Spirit, Foster shows how each of these areas contribute to a balanced spiritual life. The inward Disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study, offer avenues of personal examination and change. The outward Disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service, help prepare us to make the world a better place. The corporate Disciplines of confession, worship, guidance, and celebration, bring us nearer to one another and to God. Foster provides a wealth of examples demonstrating how these Disciplines can become part of our daily activities-and how they can help us shed our superficial habits and "bring the abundance of God into our lives." He offers crucial new insights on simplicity, demonstrating how the biblical view of simplicity, properly understood and applied, brings joy and balance to our inward and outward lives and "sets us free to enjoy the provision of God as a gift that can be shared with others." The discussion of celebration, often the most neglected of the Disciplines, shows its critical importance, for it stands at the heart of the way to Christ. Celebration of Discipline will help motivate Christians everywhere to embark on a journey of prayer and spiritual growth.
What if prayer could be simple rather than strenuous? Anxious, results-driven Christians can never pray enough, serve enough, or study enough. But what if God is calling us not to frenzied activity but to a simple spiritual encounter? What if we must merely receive what God has already given us? In Flee, Be Silent, Pray, writer and contemplative retreat leader Ed Cyzewski guides readers out of the anxiety factory of contemporary Christianity and toward a God whose love astounds those quiet long enough to receive it. With helpful guidance into solitude, contemplative prayer, and practices such as lectio divina and the Examen, Cyzewski guides readers toward the Christ whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. Ready to shed the fear of the false self and the exhaustion of a duty-driven faith? Flee. Be silent. Pray.
From a recovering addict, musician, and tattooed indie culturist: a guidebook for today’s generation of spiritual misfits who crave a dogma-free path. Brutally honest and radically unconventional, Chris Grosso’s collection of stories and musings about his meandering journey of self-inquiry, recovery, and acceptance shows what it means to live a truly authentic spiritual life. Set amongst the backdrop of Grosso’s original music (includ­ed for download via QR codes in the text), Indie Spiritualist encourages you to accept yourself just as you are, in all your humanity and imperfect perfection.